Housing Issues Everywhere

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

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Days ago I returned from visiting spectacularly gorgeous Paris. Venturing out to the countryside to see Versailles, as luck would have it, I ended up right in the middle of a scary protest just outside the palace gates. Lots of frightening men in camouflage and machine guns stood around in groups of four and eight. Ambulances, a dozen at least, screamed by.

Tired, I separated from my friends to take the train back to Paris. Mistake. My swollen feet shuffled to the train station only to be informed “No Trains” now, to avoid more incoming protestors presumably.

Unfortunately, I don’t speak French, and my map went missing, oh, and my iPhone was useless. Fortunately I didn’t need a bathroom, it wasn’t raining, and I had money. I walked at least five miles to three stations before I found a running train. Obviously I survived. But my feet still scream for mercy.

Protesting were a bastion of older, white folks who were firmly against providing immigrant/ migrant housing. Not in their neighborhoods!

The obvious solution to me was “let them live at the Palace of Versailles and eat cake,” plenty of room. Sound familiar? Only one tiny newspaper article reported this scene, and it turns out there were several wounded.

Housing is a real problem here and everywhere but absolutely desperate with the throngs of immigrants in Europe.

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